[6] 2, 3 _interiectus est nuper liber is quem ad nostrum Atticum de senectute misimus._ No argument can be founded on the words _interiectus est_, over which the editors have wasted much ingenuity. They simply mean 'there was inserted in the series of my works'. [7] See 2, 23. [8] 14, 21, 3; 16, 3, 1; 16, 11, 3. [9] See Att. 14, 21, 1. [10] It was certainly not written, as Sommerbrodt assumes, in the intervals of composing the _De Divinatione_. The words in 2, 7 of that work--_quoniam de re publica consuli coepti sumus_ etc.--point to the end of September or beginning of October, 44, when Cicero returned to Rome and began to compose his Philippic orations. [11] § 1. [12] It is perhaps not a mere accident that the prowess of L. Brutus _in liberanda patria_ is mentioned in § 75. There may be a reference to the latest Brutus who had freed his country. [13] In March, 45. [14] § 12. [15] § 84. [16] See p. iii. above. [17] In the notes exact references will be given to the places in the original where the other passages mentioned may be found. [18] Particularly the first book of the _Tusculan Disputations_, the _De Republica_, and the _Laelius_. [19] See 4, below. [20] § 3. [21] Works on Old Age are said to have been written by Theophrastus and Demetrius Phalereus, either or both of which Cicero might have used. One passage in § 67, _facilius in morbos ... tristius curantur_, is supposed by many to have been imitated from Hippocrates; but the resemblance is probably accidental. Cf. De Off. 1, 24, 83. [22] See § 2. [23] See Att. 16, 11, 3; 16, 3, 1; 14, 21, 3. [24] § 2. [25] As Cicero's intention was to set old age in a favorable light, he slights Aristo Cius for giving to Tithonus the chief part in a dialogue on old age. See § 3; cf. also Laelius, § 4. [26] See below (ii.), 1. [27] On the whole subject of Aristotle's dialogues see Bernays' monograph, _Die Dialoge des Aristoteles_. [28] § 32 _quartum ago annum et octogesimum_. Cf. Lael. 11 _memini Catonem ante quam est mortuus mecum et cum Scipione disserere_ etc. [29] Cicero always indicates this date; cf. § 14. Some other writers, as Livy, give, probably wrongly, an earlier date. [30] He himself says (Festus, p.28l) _ego iam a principio in parsimonia atque in duritia atque industria omnem adulescentiam, abstinui agro colendo, saxis Sabinis silicibus repastinandis atque conserendis_. Cf. Gell. _Noct. Att._ 13, 23. [31] See Cat. M. 44. [32] Plut. C. 1; Cat. M. §§ 18, 32: Cato himself ap. Fest. s.v. _ordinarius_ says _quid mihi fieret si non ego stipendia in ordine omnia ordinarius meruissem semper?_ [33] § 10. [34] If Plutarch may be trusted, Cato at the age of 30 had won for himself the title of 'the Roman Demosthenes'. [35] § 10. [36] In § 10 Cicero makes the quaestorship fall in 205, but he refers to the election, not to the actual year of office. [37] Nepos (or pseudo-Nepos), Cat. 1.